Christopher Pyne exaggerates trade training centre rollout figures

Updated
Mon 9 Sep 2013, 10:46 AM AEST

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Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne says the Government has only built only 230 trade training centres of the 2,650 promised by Kevin Rudd in 2007. ABC Fact Check finds that statement exaggerated.

AAP: Dave Hunt

Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne says the Government has built only 230 trade training centres of the 2,650 promised by Kevin Rudd in 2007.

"They said in 2007 they'd build 2,650 trade training centres. They built about 230," Mr Pyne told the ABC's 7:30 program on August 29.

What Labor promised

When he was opposition leader in 2007, Kevin Rudd promised to build trade training schools in every high school in the country in his budget reply speech in parliament.

"A Labor government will implement a $2.5 billion trades in schools program over 10 years to build new trades training centres and upgrade existing facilities and equipment in all of Australia's 2,650 secondary schools - both government and non-government," he said.

The claim: Christopher Pyne says the Government has built only 230 trade training centres of the 2,650 promised by Kevin Rudd in 2007.

The verdict: The Government has built 302 trade training centres servicing 825 schools. Mr Pyne exaggerated the numbers to make his point about the slow pace of the roll-out.

Soon after the Rudd government was elected, it launched a "trade training centres in schools program" on March 7, 2008 with a funding commitment of $2.5 billion over 10 years.

The then minister for education, Julia Gillard, said: "Trade training centres in schools program was a major election commitment designed to give young Australians greater training opportunities and help address the skills shortage."

Shift in policy

Later in 2008 there was a shift in policy. In November Julia Gillard announced she had received 136 applications representing 417 schools.

This showed that rather than every high school in the country having a trade training centre, two, three or more high schools would share the use of one facility.